I took a practice GRE this morning. You know, actually studying for it would be a really good idea, unlike going in completely unprepared like I did with the SAT. (I still got a 1300, though.) I didn't even finish the math section, which is really bad considering, well, I'm planning on going to grad school in math.

Although I'm good at math, I'm really slow at it, and I lose track of what I'm doing when I'm working quite often. A problem that I don't get can either throw me off a lot or make me extremely determined to solve it. The latter happened this morning, and I wound up skipping that one and not finishing the section.

I'll find how I did next week or so.

Either way, I'm figuring that I should probably get an 800 on the math section since I'll probably look really dumb if I don't.

Comments

Heeey. I actually took the GRE this morning. I didn't study at all for the verbal. I spent about 2 hours reading over all the math topics to remind myself some old algebra stuff I haven't encountered since 8th grade.

Do you know why a triangle has a sum of 180 degrees? Because the sum angles in a polygon of n sides is (n-2)*180 degrees. True story.

So anyway, I have the exact same problem as you in regards to doing math. The questions really seem designed to trick you. Is that just the way they design it and is factored into the difficulty of the test? Either way, I too spent too much time getting hung up on easy problems. I ended up getting a 650 on the math which is pretty bad for people like us. I mean its above average, but nothing amazing. Now I'm worried its going to reflect poorly on me as a candidate even though I feel I am outstanding in all other areas.

I really must say, the math GRE exam cannot show any reflection of a math student's abilities. I spent more time than anything else just trying to multiply and divide large numbers out on paper because I'm so used to doing it on a calculator. The GRE as a whole has been shown to have no correlation at all with how well a graduate student actually does at school. Its pretty silly we have to take it.

The verbal was annoying as well, I got a 530 or something, which is actually in a higher percentile than the math. The writing part was easy. They search you more than at the airport before you go in and there's a creepy 1984 feel to it.

So anyway, I ended up with an 1180 or so. Which is above average, above my school's 1000 minimum, but isn't outstanding. I wouldn't mind studying and trying to take it again, but I'm not paying $150 bucks again. If a grad school wants to see if I'm intelligent they can talk to me for 5 minutes, not look at a test score.